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Japanese cuisine the most popular foreign cuisine..? What's your favorite?

This bit of news crossed my path today via Twitter, and it has me scratching my head a bit. In December 2012, the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) conducted a web based survey in 7 countries - China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, France, the United States and Italy. Participants were asked a series of questions - multiple answers were allowed for all:

What is your favorite foreign cuisine?

Favorite Japanese dishes

What sources of information do you usually make use of when buying imported foods in general?

The results are in this press release, with some very hard to read (for me anyway) graphcs. For the first question though, these are the top 3 chosen by participants from each country:

China

Japanese (25.2%)

Korean (19.8%)

French (13.6%)

Hong Kong

Japanese (25.5%)

Korean (17.4%)

Thai (16.5%)

Taiwan

Japanese (19.2%)

Italian (13.3%)

Thai (13.3%)

South Korea

Japanese (25.7%)

Chinese (22.5%)

Italian (15.2%)

United States

Italian (15.5%)

Chinese (15.0%)

Japanese (14.7%)

France

Japanese (17.4%)

Italian (15.1%)

Korean (14.6%)

Italy

Japanese (23.8%)

Korean (19.1%)

Spanish (11.4%)

Overall top 3:

Japanese (21.1%)

Italian (12.9%)

Thai (10.3%)

Hmm...ok. I'm just a bit skeptical though, since I don't know what methodology was used for this survey, since it's not described on the press release in English or in Japanese (and I checked the PDF document linked at the bottom of the Japanese page too). How were the survey participants selected? What site did they go to answer the questions? Why these countries over others? Is there a a chance there was some pre-selection because it was on the JETRO site, a site that's clearly associated with Japan? It's a mystery. (I am a bit of a statistics and survey geek since I worked part time in that field when I was in college.) But in any case, I guess it's nice to contemplate the possibility that people from these countries like Japanese food so much. (Although when they asked about specific Japanese dishes, the answers were predictable and limited: ramen, tonkatsu, sushi, rice curry...)

But anyway, let's have another survey with a pre-selection bias (since you are on a Japanese food blog, I suspect you might have some affinity for it ^^): What are your favorite not-from-where-you-are cuisines? And your favorite dishes? Give me your country with your choices ^^

1) Spain - paella. There's so much room for flavour and creativity in paella, and so many ingredients that I love! Chicken, peppers, shrimp, possibly squid and mussels. A fresh, appetizing paella will get me excited about dinner like nothing else.

2) Japan - *tie* 'tanuki' udon or nabemono.

When I was an undergraduate student, I spent a year abroad in Japan. The cafeteria in my university served lots of food, and while I started my first day with ramen, I noticed one of my new-found friends eating the big doughy noodles that I later discovered to be udon - and there was no turning back for me! Even now, if I have the opportunity to go to a Japanese restaurant, I tend to default to udon. I preferred the tempura batter granules to the tofu in kitsune udon, so it was always tanuki udon for me.

As for the other, my best memories of Japan are actually sitting at a couple of friends' houses and eating nabemono - a giant hotpot of so many things! Noodles, fish cakes, beef, chicken... it's such a communal experience and really fun to make, cook, and eat! I had such a small hand in actually making them, though, that I don't know if/when I'll ever get a chance to eat it again.

I live in the US. My favorite cuisines from other parts of the world are Japanese and Vietnamese.

Favorite Japanese dishes include Katsudon, takoyaki, salt grilled saba w/ oroshi and a squeeze of lemon, and ume yaki-onigiri.

Favorite Vietnamese dishes include chao ga (a chicken rice porridge/okayu/congee variant), Bun (noodles) with grilled pork and egg rolls chopped up on top, and a soup that has a tamarind broth the name of which I cannot remember.

I would have to say Korean first, but I'm not sure if that's really fair since I happen to half Korean myself. Granted I don't know the language (I did at one point study on my own and watched tons to k-dramas but now with baby I barely have time to read a chapter in a book). I love bibimbap, bulgogi, Korean pancake, Korean (sweet) potato, etc. One of my favorites to eat that's so hard to find is a dish called doubbokki. Its like rice cake rolls in hot sauce. From the research it's considered more of street snack. I did find it once in Kansas City where a friend of mine lives. Her favorite is kim chi fried rice (also very delicious). Kim chi when cooked has a different taste than when eaten cold. My husband is half philippino. His mom makes pancit but there's a Korean version (very smiliar) called jap chae, it's much more moist. Every pancit I've had has been extremely dry. I think it's interesting to note that Korean dishes like jap chae are made in large quantities for a dinner party. There's also one made with beef short ribs (galbi-something, galbi means beef anyhow). Anything with guk means soup. I'm not huge into Mexican since I really don't like corn tortillas (even now I still dislike the taste of them), oddly enough I hate the taste of ginger, that stuff tastes like spicy soap! I think ginger is one of those hate it or love it spices. But its practically used in every Korean dish (I know!). Italian I like to eat when it's cooked for me like at olive garden or carrabbas. They say its really easy to cook but I'd rather spend some energy making Korean or Japanese food. Which I just recently bought your book by the way and I have been interested in making more Japanese food. I visited my boyfriend (now husband *smiles) in japan for 2 weeks like in 2005/6. I remember eating this one dish that was like black bean sauce with tofu on top placed in a hot iron skillet (only a small plate). Burnt my mouth but it was wonderful tasting! My husband is military and hopefully with a little praying and luck on our side we will get the chance to go back because I miss it, plus there is so much to see and do that you simply can not accomplish in a mere 2 weeks. Plus I LOVE the subway/train system and walking everywhere. I think I seriously lost 5-10 pounds with all that walking. Although I felt weird since I was the fattest person around for miles! Anyway I knew it was going to a random tangent. I did get to the point though didn't I?! lol Sincerely, DD^^

I have to admit, though I do love Japanese food, when it comes to cooking a foreign cuisine (at least in everyday life), it takes a back seat to Italian, and when it comes to eating out, to Greek (Japanese restaurants are very rare and expensive here in Germany). So yeah, it's among my favourites but can't claim the number one spot, if only for practical reasons.

Well, I do love Japanese foods, but I am very shy about trying to cook new things. When I eat out I like sushi, sashimi (especially beef sashimi if I can find it!!), miso soup (OMG LOVE!!!), and oolong tea if you want to count that. :)

I grew up on mostly Americanized Italian food, so I also have a fondness for foods like spaghetti, pizza, anything with a lot of carbs, tomato sauce, and cheese.

USA. Most likely that Italian is a favorite. Chinese and Italian are probably about equal. Mexican is very fast growing. In my opinion, Japanese restaurants are few and far between, so I doubt Japanese food would rank so high. Thai restaurants would rank above Japanese. I would also not be surprised to find that Vietnamese and Indian restaurants are easier to find than Japanese ones.

Tough one - I love so many cuisines. I would probably say that Japanese and Thai are my go-to comfort foods when I eat out. Italian is a high third. I am also big on regional Pacific NW (USA) cuisine. Korean is not a well-known cuisine here, but I am venturing into it. I am allowed to be indecisive since I run a cooking group where we cook from a different country each month!!

It may be that responses for Japanese dishes are predictable because we are generally not provided with a varied menu in the US. It's kind of "Americanized" Japanese, with heavy emphasis on sushi, teriyaki, tempura, udon, etc (in this area, they are often run by Koreans, which just goes to show what they think we will like). I have seen much more interesting Japanese menus in Hawaii than we ever see on the mainland.

I have a particular fondness for various rice bowls, such as chirashi sushi (including one local place that makes one with all different kinds of roe and an egg that you mix in) or topped with eel. I also love various kinds of sunomono, seaweed-based salads and pickled vegetables. I enjoy sashimi more than sushi, but am not certain of sustainability of the fisheries so am limiting that lately.

my food repertoire not that good either but if i have to choose, it would be Korean bibimbab, Japan: soba with wakame & onsen tamago, unadon, takoyaki & any wagashi with anko fillings. Is calpis & Starbucks matcha frappe counts?

Predictably, Japanese cuisine is my favorite. I'm from the U.S., but I went to Japan as an exchange student in high school and lived with a host family. Before going to Japan, I hadn't had much Japanese food--I'd eaten sushi and tonkatsu and other dishes that are popular in the U.S. but nothing really beyond that.

As an exchange student, though, I fell in love with Japanese home cooking. My host parents were very keen to immerse me in Japanese culture and made a lot of traditional food. My host mother always put three rice balls with umeboshi in my bento lunch, usually along with some pickles and meat. I was living in Mito and developed a strong liking for the natto there which I ate on rice for breakfast several days a week (I still do now--that with a bowl of miso is my favorite quick breakfast). On the weekends we'd often go sightseeing and stay in a ryokan, so I got to eat a lot of inn-style dinners--I was there in the summer and I remember that certain mountain vegetables were in season (one that looked like a small slightly spiny green bean pod with a leathery texture sticks out in my memory) so there were always lots of them and they were delicious. My favorite food that I've ever eaten in my life were snails served at a sashimi restaurant we ate at while visiting Oorai.

When I returned to the U.S. (in Texas) I missed all sorts of things about Japan (I didn't leave my house for nearly a week--the huge size of the buildings and roads and cars and the large spaces between all the buildings made me feel panicked). Aside from the people I'd met I missed the food maybe most of all. There aren't many restaurants in the U.S. that serve traditional, home-style Japanese food (there's one in my hometown now but at the time there were only sushi restaurants), and in any case I wanted to eat food like that most of the time, not just when eating out, so I resolved to learn to cook Japanese food at home. That was how I found this site! :)

Other than that, I really like the Thai and Vietnamese food that's popular in the U.S., like curries, pho, bánh mi (sardine and tomato sauce is my favorite kind), and bún (pork and eggrolls is my favorite). I've never been to either of those countries, though, so I don't really know what the cuisine people eat regularly at home in those countries is like. I like Italian food a lot too, especially seafood dishes--I recently learned a recipe for pasta con sarde with saffron and lots of fennel that I'm really into. I'm less into American-style Italian sorts of dishes because they're always so heavy and greasy (they're good every now and then though).

I currently live in Australia, and my absolute favourite food is tofu--especially simple yudofu. The best meal of my life was a tofu feast at Junsei in Kyoto, but it's very hard to get good tofu here. :-(

I'm from New Zealand, and much as I love some Japanese foods (sushi and the unhealthy fried things) on the whole I think I prefer Thai, Mexican, Indian. I love strong flavours.
It seems to me that small countries in temperate zones with lots of coast, because fresh seafood is always available and there are no seasons when fresh plants can't be picked, have what could be described as either "subtle" or "bland" flavours to their native cuisines - e.g. Britain, New Zealand, Japan. Stong flavours seem to come from preserving techniques - or what my father would have described as "ways to hide the taste of rotten food". Whatever, I love them

I'm from the U.S., and I think it's kinda cheating to mention Japanese since I grew up with Japanese American food. And here in the U.S., I don't think kare raisu is all that popular yet so it wouldn't be such a predictable answer. Most people, even here in CA where Japanese restaurants are dime a dozen, still give me a quizzical look when I talk about Japanese curry. Ichiban Curry House, for example, only has 3 locations in the U.S., and all are in Southern California.

If I'm choosing something that I'm not related to, definitely Mexican. You can't help embracing it when you live in Southern California. Aguas Frescas, Elotes, and even their chili candy are some of my favorites.

I'm from Barcelona (spain) and my favourite foods are from mediterranean east: Turkey Syria, Lebanon... but not for everyday, just for an special ocasion. everyday I prefer (west) mediterranian meals (Greece, Italy,France) with japanese incursions as miso soup, oniguiris, makis, seaweeds and bento as a concept.

Poland here :)
It's hard to name my favourite food that is typical for a region/country, since I've been on a diet for a few years, and while I usually opt for 'lighter' meals, I tend to alternate dishes a lot ;)

I'm from Spain, living in NYC. My favorite cuisine is hands down Chinese, although it might be so because my parents-in-law, who are Chinese and only make traditional food, are incredible cooks! I also love Japanese food, especially home-style dishes like nikujaga, curries, tanindon, or takenoko gohan, although I do enjoy sushi from time to time. My third favorite cuisine would be Korean, especially bulgogi, galbi, bibimbap, kimchi, and fried pancakes.
Funny enough, most of my favorite cuisines are Asian, with flavors much different to the ones I grew up with and got used to, although that might be the reason why :) French and Italian influences are so mixed in home-style Spanish cooking that I tend to not see anything too special in those cuisines!

I am from Switzerland.
My favorite cuisine is Vietnamese (I love their soups and use of fresh herbs). Second would be Korean (for the stews, kimchi, marinated beef). But I also love Indian, Afghan, Japanese and Mexican food...Oh and Italian! :)

Japanese cuisine is tasty, but I wouldn't call it my favorite cuisine. (That said, you'll never see me turning down a sushi invitation.)

I'm American, and I live near Washington DC, and as such I have a wide variety of cuisines within an easy reach. I love them all; from all continents and cultures. I love American cuisine too, even though that gets a bad rep elsewhere. It's more than just burgers and fries! (Not that I don't love me a good burger....) I don't think I really have a favorite. I just bounce from cuisine to cuisine as the whims of my cravings take me.

Mexican, or more accurately Tex-Mex, is probably the foreign cuisine I eat most often. It's hard to beat the combination of fresh vegetables, lovely seasoned beans, and cheese. But the reason I eat this most often isn't necessarily because it's my favorite, but also because so many friends like this one. On the Tex side of the equation, a good solid chili is the perfect winter dish. I've had some bubbling away in my crockpot pretty much weekly for the whole winter. And speaking of beans, the Cubans do black beans *right*. So tasty!

Indian would be high on the list of favorites. So many Indian dishes are meant to be vegetarian and are very flavorful without the inclusion of meat. I love a spicy curry, especially paired with a soothing lassi, and palak paneer ranks among my favorite comfort foods.

Speaking of comfort foods, you can't top the various Eastern European dishes for comfort. Peiroges with butter and onions? That's a cure for a bad day right there.

I grew up with a lot of Italian cooking, and I still return "home" to it periodically. Not so much these days as I'm trying to curb the carbs (pre-diabetic) and pasta is just too much of a temptation, but you really can't go wrong with the Mediterrean spice palette. I return to it time and time again when cooking for just myself.

One of my favorite dishes of all time is shiro, an Ethiopian stew made from chick peas and garlic, eaten with a flatbread called injera. I can't get enough of this stuff; if only I was successful in making it myself!

And of course, there is Japanese cuisine. There's a reason I read this site, after all. I love the stuff! When I first tried it, I was all about the sushi. The vinegared rice combined with the fresh fish (and other ingredients) is divine, and I especially love to order the chirashi bowls to get a wide variety of fishes. I learned how to make the rice at home and love making sushi with vegetarian toppings or mix-ins for bentos and snacks. When I expanded my knowledge of Japanese cuisine (thanks Maki!) I fell in love with the umami so often found in these dishes. I can't say I have a single favorite Japanese non-sushi dish, though.

Reading through some of the comments above, I suddenly felt that it would be very difficult to do a fair survey. The reason is that the Chinese food, for example, that I know back home is different from the Chinese food people get here in US. Just like the Japanese food I have had in US may not be the authentic Japanese food in Japan. So, even though I'd like to say I love the food from a certain country, does that really mean I would like it when I really have it there in that country? Anyway, this is just a thought... I'd still like to share what I like, based on my experience.

Japanese: all different kinds of sushi, chirashi, udon, ramen, grilled stuff, desserts...etc. The culture background really helps making the dishes taste even better:)

German: I lived in Germany for a couple years, so I was lucky to taste the real thing. All kinds of bread, cheese, ham, noodle, sauerkraut, pork dishes, beer, cake...etc. I found that the produce and dairy taste much much better in Germany than those in US. So, naturally, everything tastes better:)

Vietnamese: Banh mi, rice noodle soup, cold noodle

Indian: all kinds of curry, rice, and bread (with yogurt sauce, yum~)

I am from Taiwan, but I live in the US now. I love all kinds of food though. So, it's very hard to pick favorites. I do love Chinese/Taiwanese food very much, too. There are so many delicious things that you just can't get here. So, nobody knows about them except those living in Taiwan/China. Don't you feel the same about Japanese food? :)

When I lived in NYC, I used to go to Flushing quite a lot (I even lived there for about a year and a half), where there is a big Taiwanese community that's distinct from the mainland Chinese or Hong Kong immigrants. There were several Taiwanese restaurants there, that a friend used to take me to. I can't say I loved everything but it was really, really good and different from the other types of Chinese we could get. Hmm...I miss living in NY a lot...all that variety... ^_^;

I'm half Japanese and grew up living in a variety of countries and parts of the US, so it's hard for me to really say what is "foreign," but I have a deep fondness for - don't laugh! - traditional British cuisine. It has an undeserved bad reputation! Fortunately in recent years there has been a renewed interest in high quality local ingredients.

Some of my favorite British foods are classic home cooking - roast beef with Yorkshire pudding, gravy and roast potatoes; gooseberry fool; trifle; steak and mushroom pie; a ploughman's lunch with proper English cheeses; elderberry jam; Cox's orange pippins (IMO the Platonic ideal of the apple - not a recipe, though you can make wonderful cider out of them); Scottish flapjacks; lamb with mint sauce... I could go on and on!

I live in the USA and my favorite cuisine is a tie between Japanese and Indian. Lately, I have been pretty infatuated with Korean food too.
tuna sushi and palak paneer are my two favorite foods.
I usually use the ladies shopping at the local Japanese and Korean markets for information as they are always so helpful and so excited to show me their healthy food. And ever since I discovered Japanese curry and found your site, YOU.

I am Azorean Portuguese, living in Canada I've tried a little of everything, but I really love cuisines that feature fresh fish (probably why I enjoy Japanese food so much!). Being from he Azores I absolutely adore seafood and fish (it's a staple in our diet) and I love to see how other cuisines prepare my favorite fish. Also some members of my family spent time in Africa and incorporated a lot of their spices into our family meals, so I also have a well developed taste for spice and my favorite cuisine's are as follows:

Hmmm, well I'm a big fan of the Peruvian cuisine which is slowly but surely becoming more popular these days. With all the ethnic influences in that country, it is no wonder that new dishes as well as the traditional ones are now being prepared with a new gastronomic twist to them. The Japanese, Chinese, Italian, French influences, just to name a few, are clearly noticeable in the modern Peruvian cuisine.
For me, three cuisines occupy the first place: Peruvian, Japanese and Italian (Sicilian) cuisines; second place, Vietnamese and third, Chinese-Peruvian (a legend of its own!

I'm from Poland.
1. Mexican - shrimp fajitas and guacamole
2. Indian - anything with a creamy tomato/spinach sauce and garlic naan on the side
3. Malaysian - laksa! I still drool thinking about the ones I had in Borneo.. ;)

As an American living in Italy, I can say that that was a particular subset of Italians they must have asked. Anything outside their own province ~and really, their own mother's kitchen~ is a) foreign and b) inferior. So, my favorite exotic food is anything I can get when I travel. Ethnic food varies dramatically by where it is found. Outside of its home region, it becomes modified. And depending on from what region of the foreign country the cooks have emigrated, what we'll find as ethnicity "X" will also vary dramatically. U.S. Italian? Spaghetti & Meatballs everywhere. In my region of Italy? They would •never• serve meatballs •with• spaghetti. They are meat course, not pasta.

But to answer your question: fresh, flavorful, mostly vegetarian. So I love much of Japanese, also Vietnamese, and Thai. We grow our own cilantro, wild lime (lime leaf), and hot peppers just to be able to attempt these at home. Thanks for sharing the interesting survey.

But it's hard to choose, I am also fond of Portuguese cuisine as life without bacalhau would be too grim for me. Moroccan cuisine and the foods of North Africa are also delicious: spicy, fragrant tajines, meat and/or vegetable couscous and the super-sweet sweets so rich in pistachios, almonds and dates! And how to forget brazilian cuisine with feijoada, delicious seafood moquecas, bobó de camarão and tasty acaraje?

You are one of the few! My partner is a super open-minded Italian, and he puts up with my experimental approach very graciously (I cook using influences from Moroccan to Japanese, Tirolese to California cuisine), but his favorites will always be the flavors and combinations of Molise and Campania. That being said, I am Mexican-American, and my mother's cuisine as I was growing up was always a blend of the complexity and depth of Mexican cuisine and ingredients and the bright but rich flavor profiles of Spanish/med cooking (she makes the best bacalao ever, no lie). So at least my partner and I can agree that olive oil is the best dressing and cooking fat and that seafood is best as simply prepared as possible. That's about all we agree on though...

I grew up in San Francisco, and my first vivid food memories are of eating tobiko and unagi don at my neighbor's restaurant. Since then my mother has learned to cook much Japanese cuisine, in part because my stepfather is Japanese American. She makes excellent chawanmushi when I come home.

What is the point of all this background? Oh yeah! Favorite not our home food! If I exclude Mexican, Spanish and Japanese,

Vietnamese, Chinese, and Korean, because I utterly crave certain things from each, like pho, this ginger eggplant Hunan dish, and kimchi jigae. Peruvian (lived there, incredible regional cuisines and the best fish), and I die for French charcuterie and sausages...terrines, patês, confits, saucisson, boudin blanc, omfg I know I live in Italia and I love salumi too but its the liver preparations that make me swooooooon. When I was little my mom would occasionally buy me Patê de Campagne from Trader Joe's*, and that was way, way, better than candy! FOIE, for god's sake.

Ok, that's enough. Now I am becoming nostalgic for all the things it is difficult to find here. Like pho...I would do extreme things for a good pho spot in Rome.

I'm from the US, and I just like food. My favorite cuisine is American-Japanese-Indian-French-Italian-Mexican-Greek-Korean-Chinese-Moroccan-Creole-Spanish-Ethiopian-Middle Eastern-etc.-etc.-etc. In no particular order. And I'm sure there's something out there that should be a favorite but I just haven't had an opportunity to try it yet.

I'm in the US, and while there's no one culinary tradition that stands out as my favorite (there's always some dishes I love, some I'm neutral on, and some I'd rather never taste again, just like with American dishes), many of my favorite foods are from elsewhere. Russian baked piroshki; Greek pita (not pocket bread - Greek pita are soft flat rounds of flexible bread, tender and lovely and perfect for folding around slices of lamb and onions with tzatziki sauce) and of course baklava; almost anything made with udon or soba noodles, inarizushi, spinach fried noodles (the ones I make are a cross between Japanese and Malaysian styles, I think) and steamed breads of all types, baozi especially; most sausages (except hot dogs and other super smooth sausages like the ones made from surimi) from almost anywhere - from German blutwurst to Scottish haggis; Brasilian feijoada is my favorite soup. A lot of what I cook and eat is influenced by other cultures, but isn't true to any, really - it's all mix and match to fit my individual tastebuds. Pickled beef heart fajitas served on middle eastern style whole wheat flat bread, papadam to go along with savory corn pudding, mixtures like that.

To me, the Dane living in Denmark, it was always the Japanese cuisine, ever since that fateful day when my Japanese teacher at the university invited us over to make washoku. She had bought all the ingredients and then instructed us how to make the different dishes and was helping us all, making sure we did it right and it tasted properly. I can't say which dish is my favourite but from all the ones I've made over the years the following are very repeat offenders: donburi(oyakodon o.a.), inarizushi, ramen(bbq miso, all-veg style etc.), nikuman, gyoza, zarusoba, and Japanese breakfast consisting of plain rice, miso soup, a grilled fish and a serving of veggies.

Because of my fondness of Japanese food, I also actively seek out Japanese restaurants when I'm abroad (unfortunately, we only have sushi bars where I live) and I often ask the waiter to select something he or she thinks is particular delicious simply to try something new. It's a marvelous way to experience new dishes, I can only recommend it.

Last but not least, I also truly love bento. Mostly we have company lunch in Denmark but one place I worked did not and so I made bento for myself everyday: onigiri, tamagoyaki, Japanese potato salad, chikuwa, daikon salad, fish etc. etc. I really do miss that sometimes :3